


(Almost) Two Weeks

by MeltinSkelton



Series: Pre-Canon Works [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: A Minor Case of Whiskey Dick, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, And a Major Boner Crisis, Angst, Background Case, Background Het, Bad Parent John Winchester, Blow Jobs, Case Fic, Codependency, Crying, Daddy Issues, Dean Winchester Has Self-Worth Issues, Depression, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Fantasizing, Hurt/Minimal comfort, Incest, Injury, Lovesick Dean Winchester, M/M, Masturbation, One-Sided Attraction, POV Dean Winchester, Pining, Pining Dean Winchester, Platonic Cuddling, Possibly Unrequited Love, Pre-Series, Pre-Slash, Sad John Winchester, Scents & Smells, Stanford Era (Supernatural), Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vaginal Fingering, son issues?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:16:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28275195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeltinSkelton/pseuds/MeltinSkelton
Summary: It's been thirteen days since Sam left home. Dean and John are broke, exhausted, and struggling to keep their composure after a string of tough cases.Halfway to Arkansas for yet another job, Dean gets a text message.(POV Dean Winchester, directly after Sam leaves for Stanford. A follow-up to my other pre-series work, Escape Plans.)(COMPLETED 2/15/21, unbeta’d as always.)
Relationships: Dean Winchester & John Winchester, Dean Winchester/Other(s), Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester/Other(s)
Series: Pre-Canon Works [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2084448
Comments: 21
Kudos: 36





	1. Denial

**Author's Note:**

> I figure Dean and John probably had a pretty rough time coping after Sam left. The big blow-up, the separation anxiety, the uncertainty of not knowing if your brother/son was alright. The loneliness that must’ve eaten up a lot of that first month or so. SO, here’s this! Good old Dean-centric, depressing, lovey-horny-pining angst, as told loosely through the Five Stages of Grief. Enjoy!

When Sam leaves, he takes a bloody, raw chunk of you with him. Something big and vital and _deep_ in your guts. It’s a real specific piece - the one that used to writhe and ache before, the piece that used to twist up like a ball of worms whenever Sam laughed too hard or wrapped his arm around your shoulders and whispered something confidential in your ear. Sam took that bit with him and you didn’t even realize it until you woke up the morning after with your heart and your belly both feeling cold and hollow.

You do your level best to ignore it.

You’re good at ignoring things. You’ve ignored cuts and stitches and bruises and bullets and the very special type of hurt that came from getting an arrow through your arm, once. You can ignore the kind of hangover that would make Morrison flinch. You can ignore the abject strangeness of your life, the way the world works differently for men like you. You can ignore the way the _real_ world moves on around you. Without you. In spite of you, really. Ignoring you, in turn. 

You suppose it works best like that. “Ignorance is bliss" - or whatever people say to make themselves feel better for not knowing jack shit.

You don’t hear anything from Sam for almost two weeks after he leaves. Thirteen days, to be specific. Unlucky number. You count each and every one of the hours. It makes every day feel so much longer, so much worse. In that empty place in your guts, “not-quite-two-weeks” translates to “an eternity.”

It's hard to ignore.

On Day #3, Dad gets a call from someone he knows up north. You catch the important words: haunting, Oregon, tomorrow. You pack up and get ready. Dad doesn’t bother you with too many more details. Just tells you to get more water and more ammo before it’s time to ship out.

It’s the first time he’s spoken to you all day, so you don't ruin it by telling him you're worried about your money situation. You buy as much water and ammo as you can comfortably afford (which isn't actually much at all - but you make it work).

Pound of proverbial flesh aside, Sam didn’t take much with him. Two knives. One of the shittier guns and some bullets - both types, just in case. Some clothes, although he left all of his dirty stuff in the laundry duffel. There's a shirt of his on top of the cluster of dirty clothes. It's some thin, too-loose tee with some local market logo screened on the front, threadbare and full of pinholes. Worn down to barely a nightshirt. It was his favorite. You don't think too hard about the next time you'll get to do - _have to do_ \- laundry.

In a pointed but subtle “fuck you,” the only ID Sam took with him was the real one. All of his fakes still sit in the lockbox in the trunk. You open it to grab a new identity on Day #4 and you get a crowd of Sammys all staring up at you, faces all dimpled with the same awkward half-smiles, cloned pairs of gold-brown eyes waiting like you might actually say something meaningful, this time.

You want to tell yourself and the plasticine crowd that you have nothing _to_ say. And you’re a pretty good liar - but you’re not _that_ good.

From the front of the car, Dad hollers at you to hurry up. It’s the fifth thing he’s said to you in nearly two days. You’ve been counting. You grab badges for him and for yourself, and you grab three or four credit cards just in case one or two don’t have anything left on them.

Sam took some money, but it wasn’t your money or Dad’s money. None of the fake money, the cards that may or may not be any good anymore. Sam had his own money, a bankroll of tens and fives that he’d stashed away from odd jobs and things. Real money. Honest money. Maybe he wanted to show you that he didn’t need you, or Dad, or your neat-and-tidy network of small-scale scams and eternally-unpaid debts.

You wish Sam had taken _something_ to tie him back to you. Anything at all. Even if it was just a handful of pilfered bills or a single plastic lie. Something to keep tabs on him. Something you could follow, something to give you a tether and some peace of mind. Your instinct says Sam must be okay. If something went wrong - _actually_ wrong - he’d reach out to you. One of you. Probably not Dad. But maybe you. Sam’s stubborn but he’s not a moron.

Right?

Right.

...Right?

You keep an ear to the ground anyway as the days pass by. You keep an eye on police reports with certain buzzwords in them and news stories about certain types of crime, certain types of men. You can play it cool all you want, but you’re ready to steal Dad’s keys and haul ass at a moment’s notice if you hear anything at all. But you _don’t_ hear anything. Which is good, you guess, in this case. Except that even the radio silence is enough to have you up ‘til two or three most nights. You’re anxious no matter what. It’s enough to drive you fucking crazy, no matter how hard you refuse to acknowledge it.

You see a news blurb about a young man’s body found in the Hafford ravines in PA on Day #6 and you stay up ‘til five in the morning waiting for the news reports to release a picture and a name.

It’s not your brother.

You pretend you knew that the whole time. You pretend you haven’t been nauseous with worry for the last half-a-day. You pass out and get less than two hours of sleep on Day #7. 

To be absolutely fair, _you_ could reach out to Sam. You _could_. You just don’t. You tell yourself it’s because _you_ shouldn’t _have_ to. _Sam_ made this decision. If Sam really, _really_ wanted to talk to you - if he actually cared about you or Dad, then he’d call. He’d send an email, a text, something. You tell yourself that the almost-two-weeks of nothing are just proof that he doesn’t really give a damn.

You put that responsibility on Sam because you’re not ready to accept where it really lies.

You try not to think about the things Dad said to him, _about_ him, the night that he left. The awful things, the cruel things. The insults and the dares and the up-and-down curses and the guilt-tripping and the command to get gone and _stay_ gone.

Alright. You might _think_ about it. But you don’t _mention_ it. Dad sure as hell doesn’t mention it. The two of you go about your day-to-day routines, such as they are, like there isn’t a Sam-shaped hole standing frozen in between you. Thirteen whole, everlong days pass and Sam still doesn’t reach out, and _you_ still don’t reach out, and no one hardly says a fucking word.

Sometimes you think ignoring shit is just in your blood.

* * *

Thirteen days. Unlucky. The hours fill up with on-and-off driving, one ugly rent-a-room, a handful of nights in the car, two low-stakes salt-and-burns. Worry and tension. A thick layer of stony, sour silence that settles over you and Dad like a shroud.

If you don’t talk about the jobs, the two of you barely talk at all. You find yourself asking more questions than you normally would. You end up doing extra research so you can bother Dad with more facts and other bullshit that doesn’t matter, not really. But least he talks to you when you do. You’ll take that. If it gets quiet or calm for too long you start to think, and you’d rather do anything but fucking think.

You can’t rely on Dad to keep you busy all the time, though. The man has to eat or take a shit or go to sleep sometime, after all. He’s asleep now, slumped on the backseat beneath a moth-eaten blanket during the wee hours of Day #13. You’ve been driving for five hours straight, starting with a midnight takeoff from Utah and heading east. You’re beat, but it’s the longest Dad’s slept in four days, so you just keep driving.

There had been a tape playing a while back - maybe an hour ago, maybe less - but it’s over now. You haven’t had the wherewithal to flip it or change it. The highway drones underneath the tires, Dad’s snoring layered over top, the periodic hush of the wipers adding a rhythm to it all as you try not to let a sluggish early-morning mist build up on the windshield. This isn’t so bad. You can turn off your brain like this. Focus on the horizon, on the noise, on the evergreen blur of the trees outside. You let yourself slip into the blacktop-trance that long, early drives always instill and for awhile, all you can think about is the dip and sway of the road.

Even though you stink, even though you're hungry, even though you hurt all over from car-sleep and not enough water and the lingering ass-whooping from this most recent poltergeist, it’s still the calmest you’ve felt in almost - _almost_ \- two weeks.

The chime of your phone is barely enough to break through the white noise but it makes you jump anyway, the way it startles you out of your fugue.

You don’t check it right away. It might be from the guy you’re going to see in Arkansas. He hasn’t given you a proper address to meet up, yet. Doesn’t matter, since you’ve got at least another day of driving before you hit the state at all. Might be someone else, too - a handful of people have this number. This is your oldest line, so who knows.

Something at the back of your mind wriggles and itches. Something chanting _who_ and _what if_ and _maybe_.

You manage to ignore it for about about ten miles. Then you hit a stoplight, and when you look over the phone is sitting on the passenger’s seat like a placeholder, like a name card for a guest who hasn’t shown up yet. The itch in your brain gets into your fingers, your palms, ‘til you find yourself rolling the phone over and over in your hand like a worry-stone.

But you don’t check it. Not yet.

The phone sits in your lap for another few miles before the itch comes back. Worse than ever, and you know you shouldn’t fuck with it while you’re driving but Dad’s still asleep and _what if what if what if_.

The soft click when you open your cell is almost inaudible. You still wince like Dad’ll notice and ream you for not watching the road, even though you haven’t actually taken your eyes off of it. You let the phone stay open and unacknowledged in your hand for a few breaths before you finally muster up the courage to look down.

There’s a solitary text alert sitting on your screen.

_✉️ 1 New Message ✉️_

**_Sam_ ** _(650) 5:13AM_

_Hey._

You stare at it for what feels like another eternity. In reality it’s about five seconds, maybe six.

It’s two seconds too long. The crunch and jostle of the left wheel digging into the gravel shoulder pulls you out of your own head with a gasp. The phone falls, open, into your lap, the backlight of the screen glaring up at you like an _I-told-you-so_. You manage to swerve back onto the road, no worse for wear - but it’s enough. Dad’s up.

“The _fuck_?” Dad sits up, scrambling to throw the blanket off of him with a clumsy flailing of his arms. “Hell’s goin’ on, Dean?”

“Sorry, sir,” you reply quickly. Your voice is shaking in your throat, your hands are shaking on the wheel. You swallow and cough and frantically shove yourself back into some kind of composure. “Deer. Big buck. Came in off the side. Sorry,” you say again, hoping it sounds genuine enough.

In the rear view mirror, you watch Dad squint into the trees on the far side of the road. If he doesn’t see anything (and he doesn’t), he blames it on the mist and the foliage. You watch the drowsy anger drain from his face, watch the perpetual frown-line he’s had for the last ( _almost_ ) two weeks soften to its usual severity.

“Goddamn backcountry,” he grumbles, sleep-thick and rasping. He rubs at his eyes, yawns, stretches. You can smell the sleep-settled musk of over-worn clothes and old deodorant from here. Gas station whore’s baths notwithstanding, neither of you have had a proper place to clean up in days. “Head into the next town you see,” he instructs you. “I’m starvin’.”

For the first time since Day #1, you don’t try to milk anymore small talk out of him. You don’t ask him what he wants to eat or how he slept. You just nod and give him a mumbled “yessir,” and wait for him to stop scrutinizing the back of your head.

He turns his attention back out the window eventually. Between your thighs, the backlight has faded out behind Sam’s text and there’s a part of you that wants to mourn the loss. You reach down to close the phone, covering the click with another clearing of your throat. Your heart is still thudding erratic against your ribs and you can see the shape of those stupid letters imprinted like a photo negative on the inside of your eyelids every time you blink.

_Hey._

You don’t open your phone again. You want to. It kills you how badly you want to.

That itch in your brain and your fingers stays all through breakfast, all through the brief work-related conversation Dad grants you while you wait for the check. It stays all through the next stretch of the drive and through lunch in Colorado Springs and after, persistent as a bugbite or a rash. But you don’t look again. You ignore it, you ignore the albatross-weight of your phone in your pocket and the echoes of Sam’s voice in your brain, something you can hear clear as day, clear as if the gangly bastard was right there reading it out loud for you himself.

_Hey._

Dad springs for a room in Dodge City, griping about the cricks in his back and his neck. The two of you don’t chat as you bring in your bags and get ready for bed. You wash a few pairs of socks and underwear in the sink, which means no shower tonight because you need to hang everything over the curtain rod to dry. Dad sets the alarm for 4:30, so you know you’d better be ready to leave by 4:45 tomorrow.

You don’t exchange any goodnights. That’s okay. You’ve started getting used to it.

There’s a Biggerson’s right next to the motel and the sunshine-yellow, light-up sign is eye-level with your window. It’d be annoying if you were actually trying to get any sleep, but you’re not. You’re laying there with your phone in your hand and your eyes roving over the same two words you’ve been staring at since Dad started snoring an hour ago.

**_Sam._**

_Hey._

The pad of your thumb hovers over the reply button again. And again, and again, and you can’t for the life of you think of what to type out. After all, what _could_ you say?

You think again about the way Sammy had looked at you during the fight. Expectant, pleading. Waiting for you to interrupt Dad’s ranting and cursing. Waiting for you to _do_ something, _say_ something. _Anything_. But you hadn't. You hadn't been able to. Couldn't trust yourself.

That much hasn't changed in thirteen days.

You set the phone on your chest and let the backlight fade out again. You’re very good at ignoring things.


	2. Anger

It’s been two days since you got that text, and you haven’t actually stopped thinking about it. You compose a million messages in your head and not a single one of them makes it to term. A simple fucking “hi” would be enough. Hell, more than enough.

You can’t even muster up the balls to send that.

Besides, there are other things going on, aren’t there? You’ve got work to do. Truthfully. That’s what you’re telling yourself. That’s what you _keep_ telling yourself, so you don’t spend every waking moment checking your texts like a lovesick high school girl, so you have a reason to stop typing out and deleting the first couple letters of the same two dozen starting words.

Ignoring that empty space in your belly gets harder and harder.

* * *

Something in Bigelow has been pulling folks into the muddy, leaf-choked depths of the Arkansas River. Five people have gone missing over the last month. They don’t _stay_ missing, mind you; each one's turned up on the riverbanks a few days after disappearing, and each one has, of course, been dead - blue and bloated and stinking.

The news reports are all crying _murder, murder_ , but the police have no good leads on a suspect. You figure they probably never will. That’s why you and Dad got this call, isn’t it?

The contact you’re meeting at the dingy Bigelow diner is Harlan Richards, an old friend of Dad and Bobby’s. Harlan's a hunter, too - or, at least, he used to be. He’d retired some years ago after a particularly nasty job had left him barely-alive and missing his good arm. You’ve met Harlan a few times before, both pre- and post-maiming. He’s always been a pretty good dude. Heavy smoker, though. You’re shocked he lost an arm before he lost a lung. Harlan grins at you and blusters about how much you’ve grown. He shakes your hand with the one he has left, and it's a real Man's Handshake.

The stench of tobacco sticks to your palm. You try to let it be, but it bugs you so much every time you bring your water glass to your mouth that you eventually have to excuse yourself to the restroom to scrub off the smell. You leave Dad and Harlan catch up.

 _Harlan_. _What a perfectly redneck-y name_ , you think. You go to leave, then double back to take a leak - and you scrub your hands again. That smoke-stink is stuck in your brain.

When you come back to the table, something’s off. Dad and Harlan aren’t chatting anymore. They have their noses pointedly buried in their menus, but Harlan keeps sneaking glances your way. It's like he’s waiting for your input on a conversation you don’t remember being party to.

Dad’s not looking at you at all. You’re getting used to that, though.

You plaster a smile on your face and ask Harlan what’s good, what’s the hometown special, and the tension breaks a little. Harlan sells you on a steak sandwich that ends up tasting like belt-leather. You feel like that’s on you for trusting his smoke-dead tastebuds to begin with.

You’re hungry enough that you’re hard-pressed to care too much.

Harlan pays for the meal, which is a nice gesture. He forks over a fat yellow folder full of M.E. reports and photos, which is even better. That cuts your workload in half, not having to play round-up. Best of all, he offers to let you and Dad stay with him while you're here. There are precious few bills in your wallet, and zero in Dad's. If you want gas to get out of the state when you're done here, renting a room is out of the question.

You’re so relieved that you're ready to forgive and forget the sandwich thing entirely when Dad - politely, yet firmly - declines.

The two of you thank Harlan and go on your way. You busy yourself with the folder so you don’t have to deal with that old-smoke smell again. So you don't shoot Dad the look you want to give him.

Dad pulls out of the diner parking lot, quiet as always. He seems more tense than before, and you want so desperately to ask him what’s going on.

_What happened? What did Harlan say to you? Is everything alright? Can you talk to me, please, can you say something, anything?_

Dad starts talking before you have the chance to.

“How much money have you got left?”

“Uh—“ You think about it, you do some math. “Not sure. Maybe...um, a hundred-fifty, probably less.”

“Hm. Give it here, then.”

You balk a little. It’s just a stutter, just a hesitation.

It’s a mistake. Apparently.

Dad turns to you, his eyes sunken and hard and his face rough with a week’s worth of thick stubble. His lip curls like he smells something off. Like he'll bite.

“Well?” he grates, and holds out his hand.

And for the first time in years, you almost - _almost_ \- talk back.

Almost.

But you don’t.

Instead you grind your teeth and you dig out your wallet and you hand him the whole fucking thing. He stalls for another harsh moment, alternating between eyeing the wallet in his palm and eyeing your face for any trace of insubordination. You stare out the windshield and wait. Satisfied, Dad fishes out the wad of bills, pockets them, and tosses the empty thing back onto your lap.

He books a room for three nights with your money; there's maybe - _maybe_ \- fifteen bucks left over. You hope that’s enough time and enough scratch to solve this case. It’ll have to be. You'll have to make it enough. You’ve done it before.

The place Dad picks out sucks. It _sucks_. You’re essentially an expert on shitty motels, and this is a real fucking Grade-A, no-tell, roach-and-cocaine _dump._ Weak heat, everything's dirty, the water stinks. You check for bedbugs like you always do and you're actually _baffled_ when the mattress corners are clear. You're fucking _shocked_.

Dad unpacks while you sit on the grimy counter in the bathroom and turn your phone over and over in your hands. You do it until your fingers cramp up, and only then do you open it up and check it.

You check your messages every damn day. Nothing else comes. There’s nothing new there. All you’ve got to go on is this one, stupid, innocuous text.

_Hey._

You really, really ought to say something. Anything. He might be worrying.

You wonder how Sam’s doing right now. You bet his fucking dorm room or whatever didn’t cost him his last two hundred dollars. You bet it’s not full of mold. You bet a dry steak sandwich isn’t the best thing he’s had to eat for two days. You bet the college girls are already fawning all over the kid. Nice country boy like him, that’s got to be a real hot commodity in California. They don’t make ‘em like the Winchester boys out there, no sir. They don’t make ‘em like Sam.

You _hope_ he’s worrying.

You stare at a hole in the water-stained drywall across from you and grind your teeth again.

You bet Sammy’s having the time of his fucking life. No Dad to browbeat him, no bullshit jobs kicking his ass. No work, no worries.

Not like _you_.

_Fuck you_

It sends an uneasy thrill down your spine to type it out. It vindicates you even as it makes that hollow in your guts hurt again. 

_Fuck you, Sam._

You’ve already deleted it by the time Dad knocks on the door and tells you to move your ass. You’ve got work to do.

* * *

The corner shop down the road doesn’t carry much. You spend too much time there anyway, staring at the limited selection of snacks and drinks. You figure you’ve got a few more minutes left before you have to hurry up and head back. You’re happy to be out in the real world for a moment, away from the damp smell of the motel carpet and the rustle of book pages and Dad’s hunching, scowling silence. He’s actually been talking _more_ since yesterday, which is unexpected. And it’d even be nice, really, if he had anything nice to _say_.

He doesn’t.

He barks requests that you can’t refuse, snaps at you with questions neither of you can answer. He grunts orders at you and then urges you to get the lead out of your drawers when you don’t have the energy to spring into action. The two of you are no closer to figuring out what’s killing people here than you were twenty-four hours ago, and it’s got Dad’s patience worn so thin that you’re worried he might up and snap.

You bring an armful of beef jerky, protein bars, and spotty-looking bananas to the counter, plus two cups of machine-fresh coffee to scrub out the taste of the instant, tapwater-hot crap you and Dad have been chugging for the last day. You pluck a pack of Reese’s Cups from the checkout stuff, too, because that’s Dad’s favorite and at this point you’re willing to try anything.

The girl who rings you up is farm-girl pretty, freckles and wind-chapped cheeks and long, auburn waves of hair. Sharp little nose. She makes a comment about your choice of provisions, something about how her twelve-year-old cousin has the same diet.

“Sounds like a smart kid,” you tell her. “Jalapeño-flavored beef shreds - secret to strong bones.” You wiggle the bag of jerky.

She laughs and tosses her hair and bags up your little mound of junk food. She keeps talking to you while she works.

The farm girl’s name is Chelsea. She’s sweet and cheeky and you spend another twenty minutes at the corner store with her just shooting the breeze, letting her give you dishy little one-sentence tidbits about the locals who come and go while your coffees get cold off to one side of the countertop. It’s the most you’ve said to anyone, and the most anyone’s said to _you_ , in weeks. Her voice is soft and pleasant and a total departure from the throaty rasp of Dad’s orders and calls and borderline-insults. You drink up every second of it, every word.

A buzz from your pocket startles you. Three letters flash across the front of your brain and you can’t get your phone in your hand fast enough.

 _Hey_.

You fumble, too hasty, and elbow one of the coffees onto the floor. Chelsea lets out a surprised little “ _ope!_ ” and hustles around the counter with a roll of paper towels.

It’s just Dad calling. Pissed. Wanting to know where you are and what the hell’s taking so long. You tuck the phone against your shoulder and bend down to help Chelsea clean up the mess you’ve made.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry,” you’re repeating, apologizing to both of them at once.

“It’s alright,” says Chelsea kindly. She’s almost knee-to-knee with you, crouched down on the linoleum like this. There’s mud on her boots.

There’s _so much_ mud on her boots.

Dad’s bitching in your ear but all you’re thinking about is how Chelsea smells, now that you’re close. Girls smell like soap and perfume and fruit, things like that. Chelsea - pretty, kind-hearted, cheeky Chelsea - smells like cattail sap and fresh water. Like dirt, like wind.

It’s the smell of something wild. Something wrong.

* * *

It’s late. Cold and cloudy. The moon peeks through intermittent pockets overhead. You and Dad are huddled up under the concrete swell of a bridge, trying not to shiver against the November wind. It’s been thirty-eight hours since either of you have had any sleep. There’s not enough coffee in the world to make either of you personable - but the nice thing about a stakeout like this is that you _shouldn’t_ talk.

Every one of the five victims in Harlan’s file had been a different sort. This one was a bank teller, this one was a mechanic, this one was a single mother of three, et cetera. They’d had nothing in common - or so you’d thought. But there’s only so much you can get from things like police reports and death certificates.

The other stuff - the personal things, the small-town secrets that link people together, the awful things that can get people on the wrong sides of each other, that can get people hurt? _Those_ are the sorts of things that you can’t find in dossiers and newspaper clippings. Only certain types of people can give you that stuff. The types of people who talk to everyone, who hear everything - everything from the most inane gossip to the biggest, ugliest webs of inky-black lies.

In small towns like this, there are always folks who know that shit. They’re usually folks like hairdressers, waitresses, bartenders.

Grocery clerks, even.

You watch the woman wander carefully down the slope of the riverbank. Just like you and Dad, she’s had to make the mile-or-so trek from the closest bit of road. Her boots are muddy and her face is impish. She’s young. Maybe your age, maybe a few years less. Pretty enough, if you like farm girls.

Chelsea is _awful_ pretty for a farm girl.

You watch as she kneels down and, unceremoniously, plunges both of her hands wrist-deep into the brackish, trash-clogged water. She sighs the way you might sigh when you sink into a hot bath, and lowers the rest of her body down into the mud and muck. All fours now, hands and knees, like an animal. Clothes and everything, completely unfazed by the way the mud sucks at her limbs and weighs down the cloth. The look on her face is serene. 

Beside you, Dad shifts minutely. He’s got his gun in his hands but he’s not aiming at anything. Nothing to aim at, yet.

At the water’s edge, Chelsea slides onto her belly, still smiling. Unbothered by the cold, she slips lower and lower, until her chin hits the leaves littering the shimmering surface. She doesn’t grimace or spit or choke. She sinks those last few inches, her auburn hair coiling around the plunge of her head like another mass of twigs and reeds - and then she’s gone.

She never surfaces.

Neither of you budge.

You suffer the cold for another half hour before anything else happens.

Under a passing patch of moonlit visibility, something big crawls out onto the banks. A four-legged, partly-skeletal monstrosity covered in dead reeds and wet garbage. It reeks like pond scum and methane. It rears its long, meat-and-bone neck and lets loose a lowing, water-choked wail. The sound makes your skin crawl, makes your muscles jump. You stay still. If you grit your teeth any harder you’re sure to crack a molar.

Kelpies are wild things. They show up and they wreak havoc and they tear through towns with wild abandon. You’ve read about how they make games out of luring horny morons down to their waters, sucking the life out of anyone stupid enough to fall for the ruse. You’ve read about them changing shape to aid in the hunt, taking on the forms of handsome, solemn young men or mysterious raven-haired maidens with milky skin and big dark eyes. 

Chelsea isn’t dark or solemn or mysterious. She’s a girl-next-door type. Which, you guess, probably works a lot better on a town full of dopey, corn-fed Midwesterners. You catch more flies with honey, after all.

Dad levels his revolver. Slow, methodical. Completely silent. The last six silver bullets you’ve got are in there. Theoretically, he can afford to miss five times before you’re truly fucked.

The Kelpie howls again and it makes you shudder, makes your teeth chatter and your knees knock.

She hears you, or smells you, or maybe she just feels the ripples that the tiny motion sends through the freezing water. Either way, she rounds on you with those empty, bone-socket eyes - and charges.

Thankfully, Dad only misses twice.

* * *

Your boots are muddy, and so are Dad’s. The floor mats are going to be a bitch to clean out when you get the chance to do it. But you’re not thinking about that right now.

You’re thinking about the seats, actually, because that’s what you’re bleeding on. The wound in the side of your leg is shallow but ugly, a five-inch-long gash that’s torn open your last good pair of jeans. The Kelpie had had just enough time to throw you down onto the rocks between Dad’s first and second shots, and enough time to stomp a split into your calf before the third slug hit home. You suppose if the worst you have to show for it is another scar, that’s fine. Could’ve gotten a broken fucking leg. Could’ve got _dead_.

Still hurts like a bitch, though.

“You alright?” Dad is crouched outside the passenger’s side door, his hands on your leg and a flashlight tucked under his arm so he can assess your damage.

“It’s okay,” you tell him, because technically, it is. “Didn’t knick anything big. I’m okay.”

“Gonna need stitches,” Dad sighs. He kneels on the tarmac and clamps the flashlight between his teeth. The next words are an exasperated, garbled accusation. “God _dammit_ , Dean.”

“Sorry,” you reply. It’s automatic. Some clinical part of you knows this isn’t your fault and you don’t need to apologize. A bigger part of you panics at the disapproval in Dad’s voice. “I didn’t mean to—”

Dad sighs again through his nose, cutting you off. He looks up at you like you’re a fucking blubbering toddler with a skinned knee. He takes his knife and cuts the sticky denim away from your leg. Takes off his shirt and wraps it around your calf, ties it tight. Tucks the flashlight back in the console, dusts off his hands, and shakes his head.

“It’ll do ‘til we’re home,” he grumbles, and waits for you to pull yourself fully into the car so he can close the door.

“Sorry,” you murmur again, and the feeling of it slithering out of your mouth makes you so…angry. So strangely, suddenly angry. _Sorry, sir. Sorry, sorry, sorry._ You don’t _mean_ it. So why the hell do you keep saying it?

Dad slams your door shut without another word. He slips into the driver’s seat, but doesn’t start the car.

“Might as well take your medicine now,” he tells you, nodding toward the glovebox. “We’re out of anything fast or good.”

What he means is that there are no painkillers left. You won’t have anything to actually make the stitches or the hurt more tolerable. It’s just you and your mettle and whatever the fuck is sloshing around in the flask you retrieve from the compartment.

Dad speeds down the backroads while you muscle down two mouthfuls of Mystery Juice. Tastes like everclear. Tastes like shit.

Your leg throbs and bleeds and the liquor barely makes a dent in the pain. Dad’s shirt is halfway to soaked by the time he helps you hobble up the stairs. He mumbles curses and chastisements under his breath the whole time, from the minute he pulls you out of the car to when he finally lets you sit down on the stained couch.

“Told you to be careful, didn’t I? Told you she’d notice us. You know better, Dean, you—“

“I said I was fucking _sorry_ , alright? Christ.”

It’s out of your mouth before you can second-guess it. You clamp your mouth shut, nearly bite the tip of your damn tongue off. But it’s out there. For whatever reason - maybe the alcohol opened up some bypass in your head - you let that slip, and the deed is done.

Dad looks as surprised as you feel.

“ _What_ did you say?” Every word is slow, careful. He’s being generous. Giving you time to reconsider.

Dad’s a big guy. Not super tall, but big. Broad. Dark and solid. He stands in front of you with his hands on his hips, his fingertips leaving perfect little prints of your blood on the waistband of his pants, the hem of his shirt. He _looms_ over you. Makes you feel small.

You _hate_ that. You hate feeling small. Feeling lesser.

Sam never let Dad make _him_ feel small. Hell, half the time Sam was the one sticking up for _you_ \- whether you asked him to or not. Always telling Dad to get off your back or leave you alone, to give you a break. Speaking for you like you weren’t the one who was four whole years older. Like you couldn’t just say it for your fucking self.

But—

You never _could_ , could you? You _can’t_ say it for yourself. That’s the thing. That’s the fucking thing.

“I—“ You swallow. Your throat still burns like high-proof. The carpet is disgusting, but it’s a safer place to focus on. You pick a stain and stick with it. “Nothing. Just…I’m sorry, is all. Won’t…won’t happen again.”

Dad lets you sit there, meek and quiet, for another long moment. You can’t meet his eyes. You can’t stand the way he looks at you, when he does this. When he shrinks you. Lessens you. Eventually, the sludge-caked toes of his boots leave your vision, and you hear him grab the keys. The medkit’s still in the car.

You squeeze your eyes and your fists and your jaw shut, _tight_ , and count to ten. Your leg hurts, your head hurts, your whole body _hurts_ , and that hollow part of your insides is so cold that you could scream.

Dad comes back with the kit and the flask. He sets the former on the couch and shoves the latter into your fist, and gets to work. He’s stopped speaking to you again. Considering the brazen, liquor-soaked things that keep begging to crawl out of your mouth, you think that’s probably for the best.

* * *

Later, when you’re laid up and watching the popcorn ceiling spin above you, your leg aching and elevated on the arm of the filthy couch, you open up your phone again. You’re exhausted to the point of collapse but you’re already horizontal and you’re _still_ not sleeping, not yet.

 _Hey_.

How many time zones are between you, right now? What time would it be in California? What the hell time is it here, and now? The ceiling pulls together in abstract patterns and faces and you feel sick to your stomach. Everything has weights tied to it; you keep wanting to drop the phone. You don’t. You just squeeze it tighter in your clumsy fingers and think about California, the stupid acceptance letter crumpled in Dad’s fist, and thirteen days of silence.

_Nothing new, little bro? Aren’t you worried about us? Huh, Sammy? Hey, Sammy, Sammy-boy, did you know I almost broke my fucking leg tonight? Anyways, how’s fucking pre-calc or whatever? How’s your first taste of co-ed pussy? How’s the good life? I sure wouldn’t fucking know._

_Fuck you_ , you type again. And again, and again, and again. You let your thumb tap out the same pattern over and over and over until there’s a inch-high wall of vitriol staring back at you from the screen.

_Fuck you Sam fuck you fuck you fuck you_

_you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you_

_fuck you ufuck you sam fukck you ffuck_

_yu Sam fuck you fuckk yo u_

It doesn’t make you feel better this time, no matter how much you want it to.

By some grace - because, sometimes, there _is_ some grace - you’re not sloshed enough to hit send. You tap the backspace button what feels like a million times, until the reply box is as empty as it’s always been. That cold place twists in you, a shadow of what it was like when it was full. You feel bile at the back of your throat and shut your eyes before the face-patterns on the ceiling can hypnotize you into puking. Don’t want to add insult to misery, or whatever.

You pass out with your phone on your chest for the umpteenth time. You barely remember how it got there when you wake up the next morning.


	3. Bargaining

“It’s only for a few days.”

Dad finishes tucking the last mostly-clean shirt he’s got into his bag, and zips it. The room feels too full with the sound. You’d woken up to him already packing; a handful of clothes, his journal, his gun, and his knife are all neatly gathered on his bed and ready to go.

Your stuff isn’t gathered or packed. There’s no point. _You’re_ not going anywhere.

“Okay,” you say, and nod. Dad doesn’t see you do it. He’s facing away from you, still (pointlessly) fucking with straps and buckles and pockets. He avoids the face-to-face stuff when he feels guilty.

It’s not okay. You don’t want to stay in Bigelow for another few days. You don’t want to stay here for _one_ more day. You want to go with Dad, go put a hurting on whatever’s been stealing bodies from the cemeteries outside of Carthage, Tennessee.

But you can’t.

The job in Tennessee is a paying job, so you two _absolutely_ can’t afford to fuck it up. You hadn’t even gotten all that upset when Dad had used the words “dead weight.” He hadn’t meant it as an insult. It’s a fact. You _are_ dead weight like this, at least for the next day or two. You’re useless. So there’s no point in packing, and there’s no point in arguing.

Dad steps around the couch and plucks the keys off of the table. He’s careful not to bump your leg. That’s good, because you can barely handle the way the damn thing hurts just fucking sitting here. The hangover’s not helping things, either. You feel like crap from head to toe - literally.

“Room’s paid up ‘til Sunday morning, so you’ll be alright.”

You don’t ask where he got the money for the next three nights. It’s not your money this time, so it’s not your business. Still, you have your theories. You know he went out after you laid down last night, and that he didn’t come back ‘til after you were asleep. You know there’s a pool hall next town over that caters mostly to army vets, and you know how easy it is to hustle at a place like that, if you’re any good - and Dad’s good. Shit, if you were in better shape, you’d probably try and go scare up a little scratch, too. You are your father’s son, after all.

But, well. Hard to play a decent game when you can barely lean over the fucking table, huh?

Dead fucking weight.

Underneath your foot is that same stain you were staring at last night. You have no earthly idea what it is. Bleach, maybe. Peroxide. Either way - given your experience - it doesn’t speak well to whatever’s transpired in this room previously. Not that you can complain too much. It’s _your_ blood that’s on the arm of the couch beside you, and it’s the mud from _your_ boots that’s been ground into every inch of the carpet between the threshold and the couch.

None of that changes the fact that you really, _really_ don’t want to stay in this room. But one of the many shitty things about life is that it’s made of these little defeats, these concessions. Unsatisfying and unfair agreements. Someone gets the short end of the stick in every deal. And this time, it’s you.

Feels like it’s you pretty often, lately.

“Dean? You hear me?”

You pry your eyes off of the stain and look at Dad. He’s finally looking at you, too. His eyes are bloodshot and there’s a cut on his jaw that wasn’t there after the hunt last night. When he moves, he favors his left side. You wonder what the other guys from his pool game must be feeling like this morning.

“Yeah. Okay.”

Dad leaves you with contact info for a woman in Nashville - Patricia Kemper. She’s a bail bonds lawyer, according to the dog-eared business card in your hands. That tracks with the sort of folks your dad knows, you guess. He tells you to give her a call if Sunday morning rolls around with no update.

It’s still early. The light behind Dad as he lingers in the doorway is an ugly, cloudy grey that you suspect means there’ll be snow later. The weak radiators in the room aren’t enough to combat the cold rolling in around your father’s shadow. Standing there in your boxers and your tee-shirt, you’re already starting to shiver.

“I’ll call if anything comes up,” Dad promises. There’s something so unusual about how apologetic he sounds. It’s such a far cry from the short-tempered snappiness of the last two days, and the stone-edged silence of the two weeks or so before that.

“Okay.” It’s mopey and monotone and you’re suddenly sick of your own voice. You force a smile onto your face and add, “I’ll, uh, try not to throw any keggers while you’re gone.”

You throw in a dumb little wink at the end and for the first time in what feels like forever, Dad smiles too. It instantly makes your own smile broader.

“Well, you just…clean up when you’re done, alright?” he returns. He’s trying. He’s _trying_ , and you feel your throat get tight.

“Yessir,” you manage, with a half-assed salute. 

Dad gives you a once-over, the smile on his face ghosting away as he lands on your bruise-quilted, gauze-wrapped leg. You feel strangely self-conscious; you wish you had something on, something to hide it from him. But then he plants a hand on your shoulder and squeezes and an ache springs up in your eyes like you’ve jammed your funny bone.

“Just a couple days,” he murmurs again.

“I’ll be fine,” you say - because you will be. You’ll be bored and hungry and lonely, but you’ll be fine. You always are.

“I know you will.” Dad gives your shoulder one solid, rough-warm pat. The way he closes the door behind him is careful. Quiet.

You feel like you should be ecstatic over the peace, the quiet, the freedom. Instead, you stand there with your toes freezing in the draft under the door, and listen to your father’s voice like a skipping record in your head. 

_It’s only for a few days. Just a couple days._

You can hear your own voice underneath it, backup vocals on the same track.

_Just a few days, Sammy. We’ll be back in a few days._

You remember the look on Sam’s face. Always the same. The disappointment in his eyes. The way his whole face would just fall the minute he figured out that you were going somewhere, and he wasn’t coming along. Sometimes he’d try to bargain with Dad, he’d bitch or plead or argue. Broke your heart the most when he’d sigh and nod and mutter, “okay.” Made you want to just pull him against you and keep him there - to hell with jobs, with monsters, with Dad, with everything.

Your leg starts to throb and you finally have to hobble back over to the couch.

You haven’t checked your phone since last night. It sits on the scuffed coffee table next to the fistful of small bills that Dad left for you to limp by on ‘til Sunday. You open it up and watch the low-battery icon blink a steady plea at you for a minute while you listen to the radiators hiss.

There’s no reason to drag this out any longer, frankly. You don’t have any more excuses. No job, no Dad just over your shoulder, nothing. It’d take two damn seconds to tap out something inane, just something to let Sam know you’re still here, still alive. That he’s still your brother, that you still love him in spite of all this bullshit.

You can’t. At this point, you feel like you’re holding onto the last card in a game you’re losing, and bridging this gap you’ve made feels like giving up that card. It feels like another defeat.

Because now you’re not mad or uptight about Sam leaving anymore. Now you’re scared. Now all you can think of is things like _when are you going to stop this_ and _what do you want from us_ and _how many more days_ and _when are you coming home._ Because you want answers you’re not going to get. You’re not ready to have those questions answered honestly. To have to hear Sam tell you that this is for real. That this is for a long time.

That this might be forever.

So you plug your phone in and watch fuzzy reruns of The Simpsons and you tell yourself you’ll wait ‘til Sunday. You’ll be ready by Sunday. Dad will be home and you’ll feel better and Sam’s already waited this long, hasn’t he? He can wait ‘til the weekend.

After all, it’s just a few more days.

* * *

  
  


On your second day alone, you decide to do some laundry. 

What little money Dad left you is for food and emergencies. Minor emergencies. Very minor. Like, the kind of emergency that you can solve with, say, twenty-two bucks. Laundry doesn’t really fall into either category, but you’re past the point of caring. The shower here works, which has been nice, but there’s no ventilation in this hole and all the clothes you sink-wash end up smelling like dust and mold. So you decide to just bite the bullet and spend the five bucks it’ll take to shove everything into a machine and be done with it. You can eat light for a couple more days. You can’t stand _stinking_ any fucking longer.

There’s a laundromat three blocks over; you made note of it the last time you were out driving. The snowfall yesterday was fairly light and not too slushy, so you don’t have to worry about dragging your busted ass through the elements, and the route looks easy enough. Sidewalks the whole way. Your change your bandages and your leg doesn’t even hurt as much as it did last night. Everything’s comin’ up Milhouse.

You’re just about to pull on your boots when there’s a knock on the door. Curious (and not unsuspicious), you tuck your gun into the back of your pants and take a look. In the fisheye of the peephole stands a surprisingly familiar face.

“Heya, boy.” Harlan greets you with a stained smile and a shrug that takes the place of a wave. There’s a bag tucked in the cradle of his good arm. The other sleeve hangs loose and empty against his side, the cuff lazily rolled closed against the cold.

“Hey, Aqualung.” You open the door a little wider, smiling. You’re genuinely happy to see the guy - if a little confused. “What’re you doin’ here?”

“Stopped by to check in,” he says. His tone’s conversational enough, but the way he peers over your shoulder and into the room strikes you as oddly scrutinizing. “Your, uh, Daddy around?”

“No, he—“ Something about the Southern vernacular tendency to use the word “daddy” in polite conversation always makes you feel like squirming. You clear your throat and chuckle instead. “He left yesterday for a job.”

“A job,” Harlan hums. He turns his deep-set eyes on you. “Alone?”

“Yeah.” You clear your throat again. The way he’s looking at you makes you feel oddly vulnerable. “Yeah, it’s, um, it’s nothin’ big. Some grave-robber thing outside of Nashville. So I’m just holding down the fort here for a couple days before we take off.”

“Issat so.”

“Yep. Three-day vacation,” you say, and smile again. It feels transparent and stupid.

Harlan eyes you for another moment. You try to stand up a bit straighter and the strain on your bad leg makes you want to wince. You still can’t quite balance your weight just right. 

“You - uh, d’you wanna, like—“ You gesture towards the room behind you. You don’t really _want_ to invite Harlan in for a chat, but it’s cold out and you’re not entirely sure what else you’re supposed to do.

“No, no,” Harlan cuts in, shaking his head. “Like I said, I was just checkin’ up on ya.”

There’s something about the _way_ he says it that gives you pause. There’s a weight to his voice now that wasn’t there before, back when he was asking after your father. You don’t like it. It makes you think about the diner, to the way you felt like you were missing something when you came back to the table.

“We’re fine,” you assure him. It’s more defensive than you mean it to be. “I’m good.”

Harlan looks over your shoulder again, to the state of the room. There are still old, blood-brown bandages piled on the couch. You shift your weight back to your good leg, trying to block the view. Harlan doesn’t miss that, either.

“Heard ya’ll finished off that thing in the river,” he says suddenly. It takes you a little off-guard, the uptick in his tone and demeanor. The weird scrutiny has left his expression and he looks like himself again. 

“Oh, yeah. A Kelpie,” you say. You think about telling him that it was the checkout girl at the market, but he’s smart. He’ll figure it out - maybe in a week or so when the missing persons report rattles across his evening news screen, maybe sooner. Depends.

Harlan gives a low, appreciative whistle. “Ain’t that somethin’! Nasty fuckin’ things, I hear.”

You shrug and scoff. “Ah, wasn’t so bad. Easiest hunt we’ve had in awhile.”

Harlan cocks a brow at you and you can feel the lie settling around your head like a miasma. Your leg aches again and you’re starting to worry that maybe the laundromat trip won’t be as simple as you originally thought.

“Well, even so, I wanted to thank you boys.” Harlan shimmies the bag forward carefully, passes it over to you. “A little somethin’.”

“Oh. Uh—“ 

You can feel the shape and weight of a styrofoam box in the bag. Takeout food. Still nice and warm, feels like - though you’re not sure how much of that is just because your hands are so friggin’ cold.

“And—“ With his hand freed up, Harlan digs into the pocket of his bibs, and the next thing you know, he’s pressing a pair of crisp hundred dollar bills into your other palm. “Here. That, too.”

Your mouth falls open. “Harlan, I’m…this is—“

“Least I could do,” Harlan gently insists, over your babbling. “‘Specially since I’m the one who called y’all in to begin with.”

“Harlan, I _can’t_.”

You _can_ , and you _should_ , and you _desperately_ want to. But you inherited a lot of things from your father, and an ass-backwards sense of pride is unfortunately one of them. You’ll live rich, drunk, and fat off of credit fraud and the pilfered money of townies and travelers alike - but _charity_? Charity is _pity_. The thought makes your skin itch.

“Oh, like hell you can’t,” Harlan says, with a wheezing laugh. “Stow that martyring crap, kid. It’s only right.”

“But—“

“Look here: _I_ couldn’t do the job, and _you_ could. It’s economics, ain’t it? If my truck breaks down, I pay the mechanic. If my fridge goes haywire, I pay the goddamn repairman. Nothin’ different here ‘cept the type of work being done. You understand?”

You exhale and let the rest of your protests fizzle out. You’re broke, you’re hungry, and you’re wounded. Pride isn’t going to solve any of those problems, is it? That shit only goes so far. So you _suppose - this time -_ that you can settle for Harlan’s logic.

“Alright - thank you.” Grinning wide in spite of yourself, you tuck the bills into your pocket, and pat it for emphasis. “I’ll give Dad your, uh, regards.”

“Tell ‘im it’s a hunnert bucks well-earned,” Harlan asserts, his accent thick and his voice warm.

“You…” A frown creeps onto your face. “You gave me—“

“I gave _you_ a hunnert, and I gave _your daddy_ a hunnert. Fair’s fair.” Harlan zips the last inch or so of his jacket up snug, just under his dingy beard. “Just do somethin’ nice for yourself, huh? Lord knows you could use it.”

There’s that knowing, cryptic tone again. You find yourself bristling for no discernible reason.

“I’m _good_ ,” you tell Harlan again - too firmly, and he sighs a little. 

“You know I lost an _arm_ , right, boy? Not an eye, not an ear.” He shakes his head again and adds, in a halting rumble, “I’m...I was real sorry to hear about what happened.”

You don’t know what the hell that’s supposed to mean, but it makes you feel uncomfortable in a way you can’t place. That defensiveness creeps back in and you feel your mouth working. You want to say something, you want to ask what the hell’s going on, but Harlan’s already moving towards the stairwell. 

“I’ll see ya around, son,” he says, and gives you a parting wave. “Take care of yerself.”

You listen to his bootfalls echo on the metal of the stairs, then the crunch of the snow under his feet in the parking lot below, until you can’t hear anything at all anymore. When you head back inside, the radiators are hissing and clanging, trying to undo some of the damage you’ve done by leaving the door open so long. It’ll be another fifteen minutes before it’s warm in here again. You’ll be gone by then.

Speaking of which: 

The takeout in your hands is barely lukewarm anymore. You set the bag down on the coffee table and dig out the box, thankful, at least, for another actual meal - hot or otherwise.

It’s another steak sandwich.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got split into two smaller pieces because it sort of uhhhhhh got away from me. Sorry! I just really like writing about Dean being lonely and depressed and coping!! That’s my brand, baby!!! :)


	4. Bargaining, Pt. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright screw it you get both parts of this bit this week. I don't feel like waiting to post it since it's done already.
> 
> This is the chapter with the fucky stuff if you're looking for it btw

The snow has just started up again by the time you finish eating and venture outside.

The first few steps worry you - your calf cramps a little as you head down the stairs, and the laundry bag over your shoulder feels heavier than it rightly should. Once you get walking, though, you feel alright. It’s standing around and bearing your weight that seems to do more damage. You keep a steady pace and the three blocks pass by easily.

You’re still limping a little by the time you get through the doors, but you can deal with it. It’s barely two o’clock on a Friday, so the laundromat’s as empty as anywhere else in town. That’s fine with you. No one’s fussing or fighting over the dryers, there are no unsupervised kids underfoot. There’s nothing but the hum of a few unattended machines and the murmur of a daytime soap on the TV in the corner. All the peace and quiet of being alone at the motel, minus the dank smells and unexplainable stains.

Outside, the snow comes down a little harder. It’s the kind of thick, fluffy stuff that sticks to your eyelashes and turns everything to grey mud by morning. For now, though, you catch your breath in the soap-scented warmth of the laundromat and watch the snowfall paint the little row of buildings across from you with a fine dusting of pristine white, turning the dreary rustbelt panorama in the window into a Thomas Kinkadian winter pastoral.

It’s actually kinda nice.

There’s a way that you normally do laundry. You make a pile of the stuff that’ll be easy to wash, piece by piece, until the pile’s big enough that you can stuff the _really_ atrocious shit - the really dirty, bloody, gunked-up stuff - into the middle of the bundle to hide it. It’s a habit borne of caution, since a lot of times places like this _aren’t_ empty. It’s tough to avoid stares and questions when half your wardrobe reeks like rancid meat and looks like you snatched it from the set of Evil Dead.

Thing is, _this_ laundromat is empty. You still feel reckless when you upend the bag onto the table and let everything tumble out into the open.

And, in a way, it _is_ reckless. 

Sam’s dirty clothes, previously stuffed all the way to the bottom of the bag, now sit on top of the pile. All of your clothes and what’s left of Dad’s are muddy and musty and some of them ay not actually be really wearable even after a good washing. The pair of jeans and the three shirts which Sam left behind, comparatively, are in pretty good condition. You ought to wash them. You could use them. Alright, maybe not his jeans - his inseam is several inches longer than yours and he’s always been too skinny. But the shirts are fine. A little loose, maybe, but fine. You should keep them. You should wash them and keep them. They’re perfectly good clothes.

There’s a deep, awful part of you that says Sam will want them when he comes back. When he comes home. To Dad, to you. He’ll want his clothes. He’ll want them clean.

The more practical part of you says again that they’re just clothes. That’s all. They’re perfectly good clothes, and you need clothes. That’s all. You’re not saving them for anyone, because no one’s coming back.

You don’t want to listen to that part. Not yet.

You pick up Sam’s threadbare sleep shirt and rub the hem between your fingers. It’s still soft, properly washed from the last time you’d had access to a machine - which feels like a fucking year ago at this point, by the way. It was, at most, three weeks back. There are pinholes along the collar. You run your fingertips over them, dig your thumbnail into the largest one.

The night before the fight, he’d been so quiet. You’d known something was wrong but you’ve never been great at asking hard questions. So you’d stayed up late with him, the two of you quietly drinking your way through a sixer and watching free cable in your tee shirts and boxers, all the while refusing to acknowledge the elephant in the rent-a-room. The couch had been small. More of a loveseat, really. Sam had sat almost shoulder-to-shoulder with you, one skinny knee knocking against yours whenever he’d fidget or shift. Close enough that you could smell him. Too close, maybe. But the two of you had always been close, hadn’t you?

You’d always been too close.

There’s still no one around. Not even an attendant. 

You bring the shirt to your nose.

The doorbell jingles as a woman enters and you all but leap out of your skin.

You shove Sam’s stupid fucking shirt back into the bag and gather up an armful of the rest of the stuff, angry and embarassed as you rush to get your things into a machine and out of sight. Your face is hot and your hands are trembling. Your stomach hurts in a way that reminds you of the backend of an adrenaline rush, like you just missed a fight or almost got caught stealing.

In an effort to distract yourself, you focus too much attention on the washing. There’s a machine here that has soap and other supplies in it; you splurge on the good detergent and actual fabric softener. Not the dryer sheets - the liquid, lavender-scented, silky stuff. You use too much and you feel rich with it. You put things in dryers in stupidly small loads just to make sure nothing comes out damp. When it’s all done and over with, you fold everything before you tuck it back in the bag.

It helps. By the time you’re done, you feel close to normal again. You’ve spent a solid ten bucks on laundry alone - and that’s fine. In your pocket, there’s still an unbroken hundred with your name on it. You fiddle with it while you walk home, your leg sore but your spirits a little higher.

You should do something nice for yourself. Lord knows you could use it.

  
  


* * *

  
  


The bar at the end of your street is a total dive, appropriately shitty to match the motel and the other buildings in this part of town. There’s a busted dartboard in the corner, too close to the tables to make playing a safe game possible. The pitted edge of the bar top catches at loose threads on your sleeves, and the knickknacks on the high shelves that run the length of the far wall likely haven’t been dusted since the Reagan administration. Everyone around you is still in their work clothes and nobody seems to care that the whole place reeks like bleach and old beer.

You feel right at home.

The girl behind the counter zips right over to you almost as soon as your ass hits the cracked vinyl on the barstool. In true small-town dive fashion, she’s hotter than she has any right to be. It’s always the best-looking chicks who end up in these spots, making what money they can off of their looks and down-home charm. She’ll stick around until she gets too old or too pregnant or both. 

But for now, she’s young and she’s pretty and she’s telling you the drink specials for the evening, and you’re not listening to her because there’s a little trio of stars tattooed on her hipbone, of which you can currently only see two-point-five. Her hair’s not naturally blonde, but that’s fine - her roots are _mostly_ dyed. She’s skinny but her tits are perky, her laugh is annoying but at least she’s easy-going. Realistically, she ranks at about a Six-Outta-Ten, but the Big Fish/Small Pond thing bumps her to an Arkansas Nine.

That’s fine with you. Your last hookup was three weeks and seven states ago. You haven’t even had the chance to toss one off on your own in days and days. At this point, you’d settle for an Arkansas Six.

In exchange for three full-price beers, you manage to get a name (Haylee - “with two E’s,” and a giggle), and a free shot (tequila) out of the bartender. You try for her number, too - but that deal doesn’t close, see, because she gets off of work at ten, and it’s already nine-thirty. You shoot her a grin and an arch of your brow, and she slides you another beer (also free) to keep you occupied for the next half-hour. You think that’s a pretty good bargain.

She clocks out at ten-o-five and lets you walk her to her car. When you slip an arm around her waist, she grins and giggles that annoying, childish giggle. You grit your teeth and shrug it off. That’s alright. There’s a price for every deal. 

She folds against you easy, parts her lips easy when you lean in to kiss her, parts her legs easy when you paw up under her skirt. It’s all easy, _all_ of it, all simple and familiar down to the very last movement. It’s the same dance you always do with girls like her. You know what you’re doing. _She_ knows what _she’s_ doing, moves like she knows how to get what she wants out of you. You like that. When girls take control. When they crowd you, make you feel wanted. Overload you, overwhelm you. When you’re like that, with all your senses wrapped up in another person, it’s hard to think about anything else.

That’s the part you like the most.

Haylee-with-two-e’s is soft and warm under her coat when the two of you slip into the backseat of her still-cold Ford. Warm under her shirt, her bra, her nipple pebbling under your palm. She squeals against your mouth and giggles about your cold hands and it’s so distracting. You bury your nose in her neck and breathe her in, try to clear your head by filling it with something physical. You bury two fingers in the slick, slippery warmth between her legs and you still can’t concentrate. She’s making those schoolgirl sounds in your ear and you couldn’t be less interested.

With her tongue down your throat and your first and second fingers in her cunt, Haylee bucks and writhes and comes. The backseat’s finally warm and the windows are fogging up something fierce, real obvious, but there are no other cars in the parking lot - not that you’d care. You’ll give the hometown boys a show. Sure. Why the hell not? What the hell else is there to do in this shithole?

Shaking, smiling, sighing, Haylee undoes your pants with all the practiced skill of an expert. She titters in your ear about how _she’s_ good with her hands, too, _sure_ \- but that’s not her _favorite_ thing to do. She licks her lips and she might as well just stage-wink at Camera Two for all of her subtlety.

You’re _maybe_ half-hard in her grip. She seems to take it as a challenge. She curls down over the seat and starts to blow you. She takes you deep and moans around you and does this thing with her tongue that seems startlingly complex. It’s the best head you’ve had in months - and it doesn’t take your mind off of anything. 

When you can’t keep it up, Haylee-with-two-e’s-and-a-giggle gets mad. Huffs and scoffs and crosses her arms over her perky tits and asks what the fucking problem is.

You don’t _know_ what the fucking problem is. You’re as frustrated as she is. So you blame it on whiskey dick, even though you’ve managed to blackout-fuck your way through many a night before this. But Haylee doesn’t know that. She buys it, albeit without much grace or sympathy. She rolls her eyes and says something snide, and kicks you out of her car without so much as a goodnight. And - scuffed pride and unspent load aside - you can’t even really be bothered by it all, because it doesn’t really matter. You’ll never see her again.

On the walk home, you tell yourself that it was her fault. You couldn’t stay in the moment because of her laugh, or because of her perfume. Or because you like bigger tits, or because you thought her tattoo was actually kinda trashy. Her roots were bad, she looked too much like So-and-So from Wherever, she wore too much makeup, she had the wrong color eyes.

By the time you get back to the motel, you’ve come up with a hundred different reasons - none of which have ever bothered you before.

You shuck your boots and your coat off at the door. Your leg hurts like crazy by now and you just want to go to sleep. But you tug your shirt over your head and you get a whiff of Haylee’s perfume cloying at you. You tug your jeans off and there’s still drool cooling on the fly of your boxers. Your mouth still tastes like drugstore lipgloss and tequila, you can still smell that earth-salt scent of _girl_ on your hands. She’s gone but she’s still all over you and you just want to be rid of the sour disappointment that comes with the memory.

Another shower wouldn’t hurt, you figure.

The folded clothes are in a neat pile on Dad’s bed, ready to be sorted into your bag and his bag when he comes back. You drop the towel from your waist and slip on a clean pair of boxers - and, because it’s still three degrees on the wrong side of too chilly in here, you root around for a shirt, too.

Like some cosmic fucking joke, you come up with Sam’s.

You stare at the stupid screenprint on the front. Parts of it are so faded that you can’t even tell what the letters used to be. There’s no tag in it anymore - he’d ripped it out when he was going through that phase that all kids go through. It’s started to come apart at the seam there. You knew all that already. You feel like you could draw this fucking thing from memory, if you had to.

You turn the shirt over and over between your hands the way you do with your phone, and wonder if Sammy’s having the same shitty Friday as you are. You doubt it. Probably just getting into the local flavors. A Friday night at a Cali college? It’s probably still warm enough to throw the real, balls-to-the-wall, Animal House-style parties.

(It occurs to you that you might not have a _completely_ accurate perception of what college life is actually like - not that it really matters, you guess.)

The image of Sam at some campus rager, playing beer pong and doing keg stands, it makes you laugh. A keg stand. Big fucking dork. Who could lift him? It’d take the whole fucking lacrosse team. More likely, he’d be stuck in the corner of some frat-house kitchen shuffling his feet and sipping his Natty Ice until some soft-eyed pre-law student took pity on him, tried to chat him up. Get him loose. College girls are easy, but _they_ don’t know they’re easy. They think they’re the exception to the rule because they don’t have tattoos and bad dye jobs and too much perfume. They’re sweet and curious and they’ll let you fuck ‘em after a solo cup of Jungle Juice - but they don’t act like it.

You wonder if Sam knows that, yet - how easy it is to get a college girl on her back.

You wonder how easy it is to get Sam on _his_ back.

Something in you twinges, and you swallow hard around the dry click of your throat. You twist Sam’s shirt tighter in your hand.

You always gave him shit for being a prude and a dork but hell, for all you know? Your baby brother might be balls-deep in some cherry-lipped sorority girl right fucking now, giving her the time of her life on some regulation-issue twin bed.

You almost laugh again. Sam’s tall. Too fucking tall. He’d probably barely fit on a dorm bed. Probably need to fold himself damn near in half. You almost feel sorry for whatever poor chick ends up underneath him. She’d feel so crowded, so small. But hey - maybe she likes that. Maybe it makes her feel good. Maybe she likes to feel overwhelmed, wanted. To have someone taking up all of her space, her attention.

You get it. After all, that’s the part _you_ like the most, isn’t it?

Another twinge, lower in your belly. Too low. You’re half-hard against the edge of your mattress and it makes your gut twist, sick and secret. You wring the shirt even tighter in your hands and try to even out your breathing. You’ll stretch the fabric if you keep this up, and Sam will want his shirt when he comes back.

 _If_ he comes back.

Don’t think about that.

You think, instead, about Sam looming over some nameless, faceless co-ed. You think about her underneath him, her tits pressed against the width of his chest, her legs wrapped around his waist. He’s got such a skinny waist but he’s got those big fucking shoulders for her to dig into. You think about painted nails drawing welts on Sam’s arms, criss-crossing red over his white-and-pink patchwork of scars.

You could draw those from memory, too. You can imagine what each and every one might feel like.

If you rock your hips against the bed - just a little, just a couple times - well, there’s no one around to see you, is there? No one to notice that you’re hard enough now to be leaking in your nice, clean, softener-silk boxers. The kind of hard that Haylee was trying - and failing - to make you. The kind of hard that has your balls kind of tight already, has your pulse coming loud against your eardrums.

Sam’s smart. Attentive. He’s gotta know his way around a woman, he’s gotta know what to do. He’s the type who probably eats a girl out before he fucks her. A real fucking gentleman. Probably loves doing it, loves burying his tongue in her pussy and watching her with those big, honey-gold eyes while she squirms. You’d bet he could have his little co-ed playmate moaning in no time, soaking her sheets, soaking his pretty fucking face.

You exhale again, sharper. Shove a hand down the front of your shorts, a buffer between the mattress and your cock. You grind against your hand and grit your teeth. There’s no one here. You say it to yourself over and over and over again while you think about Sam’s wet chin and heartbreaker smile and the way he’d have to curl down to line himself up, to slide himself into his nameless date’s cunt, to watch himself stretch her open while she whimpers and clenches.

Sam’s big, isn’t he? God, God, _God_ \- he’s got to be big all over.

You pitch forward onto the bed, bring Sam’s shirt to your face. It smells like the night your life ended and you feel simultaneously so alive and so pathetic that you might just come apart at the seams, too. Caught between your forearm and your chest, the sharp points of the amulet around your neck dig into your shower-fresh skin like a warning. You don’t listen to it. You suck in a lungful of sweat and soap and stroke yourself harder, faster.

He’d been sitting so close to you that night. Close enough to touch. You _could’ve_ touched him. You hate yourself because - more than anything - you _wanted_ to touch him.

God help you, you still do.

Suddenly, _violently_ , that empty place in your stomach blooms and aches and goes blood-warm. You shut your eyes against it, against the way your chest gets tight and your hands want to shake. Your leg is shaking, too - you’ve been standing too long - but you don’t move, you _won’t_ move. You bury your face in Sam’s shirt, press it into the soft dip between your nose and the bow of your lip and inhale again and again and it’s fucked up but you bargain with yourself, you tell yourself it’s just one second, then just a few _more_ seconds—

You spurt into your hand and clench your jaw and don’t make a single sound. You’re terrified of what might come out if you do.

The spunk on your fingers is still warm when that adrenaline-sick feeling sweeps back through you. Guilt and disgust and confusion tear through your veins like ice water and leave you shuddering in the draft still seeping in under the door.

In the bathroom mirror, you watch yourself wash your hands. The water’s so hot that it’s hurting. You don’t look at your face. Can’t. The two of you - the real you and the mirror you - make a silent agreement without your eyes ever meeting. You will never, _ever_ talk about this. You can’t. You’ve known that since the very first time Sam knocked you on your ass during a fight and, laughing, wound his fingers around your throat. You knew it was over. You don’t - _can’t_ \- think about it. It’ll kill you. For God’s sake, it might kill _both_ of you.

So you make this deal and you clean yourself up, and when you go to bed you shove Sam’s stupid fucking shirt so deep into the laundry bag that you don’t have to worry about it for at least another goddamn month.

Life is made of these little concessions, these bargains with yourself, and you always lose - every time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Gee, Elton, you sure do write a lot of Sam/Dean scent-kink stuff huh."  
> Listen. We all have our vices. Let me be horny in _peace _.__


	5. Depression

You miss most of Saturday morning.

When you _do_ finally wake up, everything feels far-off. You’re aware of yourself, your surroundings, the reality of it all - but in that sickish, offbeat way that follows the flu or a hospital stay. It’s like a hangover, minus any of the fun. You wonder if the snow stopped overnight, but you don’t have the wherewithal to get up and check. The window’s literally within arm’s reach and you still don’t bother to check.

What’s the point? You’re not going anywhere. You’re stuck here in this $45-a-day purgatory, counting dust motes and waiting. Waiting for Dad to get here - sure. Or waiting for Dad’s continued absence, for a reason to call Miss (or is it Mrs.?) Patricia Kemper. You’re waiting to move, or not move; to pack or not pack; to worry or not worry. It’s moved past stressful and on to boring. _So_ fucking boring. You’ve hit a saturation point of doing nothing that you’re not used to. There’s _always_ been something to do, or something to look forward to, or someone around. Even when Dad would leave for weeks at a time, you always had Sam to look after, to talk to, to tag along with you and make even the mundane shit seem a bit more exciting, a bit brighter. And what have you got now? A busted leg, a broken hundred-dollar bill, and a dark little blank spot inside you.

At length, you do drag yourself out of bed to take a leak, and your leg is twice as sore as yesterday. You can hardly bear your own weight. Must be from all the walking you did, you figure. Serves you right. Fucked yourself over for another day just to have some clean laundry, a handful of beers, and a fumbling half-hour with Miss Arkansas Ten.

Embarrassment creeps up your spine like the scrape of bubblegum-pink fake nails against your skin and you sigh aloud, the small sound echoing off the filthy tile walls. You think about your perfume-soaked shirt, your spit-stained underwear, the unpretty giggle-squeal of the bartender’s voice in your ear, the disdainful curl of her lip as you limped away from her car. You think about Sam’s shirt stuffed into the laundry bag, tucked deep into the corner like a dirty secret, hidden like how you used to hide your jizz-stiffened socks when you were thirteen. When you knew you were doing something private. Something shameful. Something gross.

Your stomach cramps up and for one dizzying second you think you might puke. But it passes. Like everything, it eventually passes. You wonder when you ate last. When had Harlan come by? You try to think back to it but your mind is muzzy and soft. Food might help that, too. You’ve got money for it now - you could make another grocery run. A _better_ grocery run. But the closest shop is the one where Chelsea had worked.

You wonder if the staff there have noticed that she’s missing yet. If her friends had noticed, or her family (if she even really had any). You wonder if the police have gotten a heads-up yet. You wonder if anyone has gone looking for her. They won’t find her. There hadn’t been anything left of her _to_ find. The silver slug hit her one moment, and she was nothing but rancid pondwater the next. You remember thinking how odd it was that something so insubstantial had been able to hurt you so badly.

You think that way about a lot of the things you end up fighting - but the wondering never makes any of your scars less real.

The day spins on around you in a grey, wintery fugue. You spend your afternoon watching sitcoms and cartoons. You pick your way through the last bag of potato chips and it only makes you sort of nauseous. When you lay down and rest your hand on your belly, you notice how much smaller the shape and swell of it is, how much harder. When you were really young, Mom used to pinch your cheeks and kiss you and call your extra softness “puppy fat.” Sam had lost all of _his_ puppy fat when he was ten and he’d never looked back, but you’ve always had a little bit of it. Always just a _little bit_ of softness, right there in the middle. Not anymore. It’s a luxury you can’t afford to keep up.

The days start to go dark early this late in the year, but between the closed curtains and the glow of the television, you‘re barely aware of the hour to begin with. You’ve only been measuring the passage of time in commercial breaks and reruns. In between the third and fourth soap opera of the day, as you’re nodding off, your phone buzzes. It shocks you, physically jolts you upright and stiff like a taser-zap. Your heart’s in your throat when you all but wrench the thing out of your pocket. You’re so quick on the draw that you answer before the second ring is done. You don’t even check the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Dean?”

Your heart - your silly, stupid, hopeful heart - settles back down into your chest. The voice on the other end of the line is the one you should’ve been expecting, but not the one you wanted to hear.

“Dad.” You rub the embarrassed heat off of your cheeks with a cool palm and take a breath. “Hey. Everything okay?”

“Fine,” Dad assures you. “I’m just fine. All done.”

“Great. Awesome. You, uh, you’re not hurt or anything?”

“I’m fine,” Dad repeats firmly, but there’s a note of warmth in his voice. “You alright?”

“I’m alright,” you say, because by John Winchester’s standards you’re golden. “Bored outta my skull, but hey. All caught up on Days of Our Lives, finally. Might work on General Hospital next.”

Dad huffs out a breath of laughter. “Well, don’t get too comfortable. I’m comin’ to get you.”

“You’re— what, right now?”

“Right now. Already on my way. I’ll be there in two hours. You gonna be ready?”

“Uh, yeah.” It’s not really a question, even if he phrases it like one. You clear your throat and try again. “Yessir. I’ll be here with bells on.”

“Good,” Dad says. Then, with that same unusual warmth, “See you soon, son.”

You sit there on the couch with your silent phone in your hands for a while afterward, running your thumbs over the buttons. You still feel distant and sleepy, the way you have all day, even though you have something concrete to focus on, now. You _want_ to be excited. Relieved. Dad’s alright and you’re getting out of this shit hole. You should be stoked.

But tomorrow is Sunday, no matter where you and Dad end up. And Sunday means the end of your silly, self-imposed deadline. You can’t ignore your problems forever. You knew better than that already.

Sam’s text sits in your messages, sits around your neck like an albatross, sits in your heart and in the empty part of your smaller, harder belly like a stone. You can sense that brother-shaped hollow under your ribs, sharp as a cold spot in a haunted room. It scares you that you’re getting used to it. It scares you how normal it’s starting to feel. 

Tomorrow is Sunday - but for now, it’s still Saturday, and you need to get packing.

* * *

Dad shows up with new credit cards in his pockets and a fresh set of cuts on his hands. He’s in good spirits - almost conspicuously so - and even offers help with load-out. You let him carry your duffel, but you tuck the laundry bag close under your arm. It’s a stupid, baseless suspicion, but you feel like if you let him carry the damn thing he’ll somehow be able to _feel_ what’s off about it. Like he’ll be able to smell Sam’s shirt in there and put two and two together. Like somehow, he’ll figure you out. Sometimes you wonder what Dad _would_ do, if he knew about his oldest son’s dirty little secret. You imagine you’d end up dead - or worse. 

(You won’t admit it to yourself, but sometimes - only now and then, only very rarely, when you’re feeling particularly self-destructive - you almost _want_ to tell him.)

Your stomach starts rolling again, making you wince and grunt. Dad shoots you a look, concerned. You wave him off with an excuse about eating something funny earlier but hey, you’re good to go, no worries. You slip into the driver’s seat. If he still thinks anything’s up, he doesn’t mention it. Just folds himself into the car and cracks open a beer from the case on the floor. It’s fine, you think, since he’s not driving. Granted, that doesn’t make it really _legal_ , but it’s kinda-sorta _less illegal_. You’re taking mostly country highways, anyway. No real harm. You’ve been known to have a road-soda or two, yourself.

Dad’s more talkative than he’s been in weeks. As the two of you head towards Oklahoma, he tells you all about the corpse-snatching case. He leans against the window while he talks, his posture slouched and his voice deep and even. You’ve missed the sound of his voice, the way he tells his stories. You miss Sam - more than anything - but it’s been tough to miss your father, too. Moreso when he’s been _right there_ the whole time.

“What the hell is a cryptworm?”

“ _Wyrm_ ,” Dad corrects, like you can hear the difference. “Old English spelling. With a ‘y.’”

“Okay, a _cryptwyrm_ ,” you repeat, spelling it out in your head as you go. “So what the hell _is_ it?”

“Nasty bastard, ‘bout as big as a dachshund and with three times as many ugly little teeth,” Dad tells you. “Digs into fresh graves and drags the bodies back to its nest to eat ‘em later.”

“So it’s kinda like a ghoul.”

“Suppose, yeah,” Dad allows. He scratches at the stubble on his chin and you notice for the first time how thick it’s gotten, how dark the circles under his eyes are. It’s tough to see the handsome, ex-Marine type of guy he normally is under how drained and unkempt he looks. “‘Cept ghouls don’t lay goddamn _eggs_ in half the bodies they take home.”

“Augh, _God_ ,” you gag, caught off-guard by the image. “I don’t wanna know that. _Fuck_ , that’s awful.”

“You’re telling me.” A laugh rumbles through Dad’s chest. “Should’ve seen it. Still makes my skin itch.”

“You made sure you didn’t bring any back with you, right?” It’s only half-teasing; your skin crawls at the thought. “You didn’t come home smugglin’ a chestburster?”

“Made _damn_ sure, don’t you worry.” Dad pats his broad chest. The motion is lazy, sleepy. “No, uh, zanomorphs in here.” 

“ _Xenomorphs_ ,” you correct him, smiling. “With an ‘x’.”

Dad chuckles and nods and polishes off his beer. He tosses the empty can lightly onto the floor of the backseat. You hear it clatter against something else, but it’s dark and you can’t really see without craning your neck around. The sound of Dad cracking open another can draws your attention back to the front anyway. You don’t know how full the case by his feet is but you do know Dad didn’t have to tear it open when you got in.

Dad continues to pepper in anecdotes from his trip. His speech gets slower, deeper, sleepier. For some reason you can’t place, it gives you this niggling feeling at the back of your skull. You chalk his tone up to exhaustion, and everything else up to your weird mood. You keep your mouth shut and your eyes on the road while the moon crawls higher overhead. 

* * *

It’s almost ten by the time you reach your destination. You’re setting up at a rent-a-room joint just outside Pocola. The buzzy old sign outside the turn reads “Poteaux Inn,” which sounds fancy and French, but the place has more of a, uh, lumberjack vibe.

The log-cabin look of the place is old, kitschy, cheesy-but-charming in that way that themed places like this often are. There’s a drive-up check-in, which is nice, and everything is ground level - even nicer, given your current feelings about stairs. You pull up in front of your room and before you’re even fully in park, Dad slides out of the passenger’s side. His movements have a sort of skeletal liquidity to them. He swings his arms too wide, takes his steps too big. He grabs the key from you, grabs his bag - doesn’t get either of them on the first try - and heads for the door.

You don’t miss the way he fumbles with the lock, too, or the way he junebugs off the frame, the way he shrugs it all off with a furtive glance over his shoulder. It doesn’t sit right with you. You’d watched him work his way through, what, maybe five beers during the drive? That’s nothing special for a man like John Winchester. Not enough for him to get so clumsy, so loose.

You hang back and when Dad’s finally through the door and out of sight, you lean over to the passenger’s seat. The twelve-pack box is still sitting on the floor. You give it a gentle shake and there’s nothing left inside. In your gut, something unpleasant dips and sways. You lean back between the seats and in the brittle, yellow light of the lamps outside, you can see a dozen or so crumpled cans glinting silver on the floor. The angel’s share of dregs that have leaked and stained the carpet still smell fresh.

That unpleasant feeling blooms bigger, brighter. You swallow it down, grab your bag, and head inside.

Dad’s in the bathroom - unsurprising, given the fact that he only had you pull over for a piss break once in your two-hour drive. His bag’s been tossed on the floor near the armchair in the living room. You set your bag carefully down near the bedroom door, and take stock of the new place.

The job in Tennessee had paid very well, and Dad’s used that corpse-eater money to set the two of you up somewhere good. Somewhere with a kitchen, a separate two-bed bedroom, in-building laundry - all that fancy crap. All the furniture is clean, if a little faded. The oven and the fridge look sturdy and new. When you take an experimental inhale, you don’t feel like you’re choking on dust. Or mold. Or both. To top it all off, there’s not a _single_ unidentifiable stain anywhere on the carpet. Not a one. _Hallelujah_. Nice rooms are hard to come by in your lifestyle, and you’d been a little reluctant to trust a place like this at first, but…hell, this is a _nice_ room.

It’s not the kind of place John Winchester normally springs for - but you’ll be here awhile. Three weeks minimum, maybe closer to a month. Long enough to grab a real job and put some real money in your pockets, long enough to resupply and make a run to Caleb for munitions, odds n’ ends. Long enough to actually recover, and long enough to get comfortable. It’s been a good while since you’ve had a chance to get comfortable. 

From the other side of the bathroom door, you hear Dad spit and flush. That unpleasant feeling comes back, a dull sort of anxiety stealing up your spine. You don’t _feel_ comfortable.

Dad emerges with a sigh. His eyes are more bloodshot than before and you know at this point it’s got very little to do with how tired he might be. He settles into the faded armchair and pulls his duffel closer to him.

There’s no point to asking but the question is out of your mouth before you have a chance to think better of it.

“You feelin’ alright?”

He stops fishing around in his bag and turns his red-rimmed eyes to you. “Fine,” he mutters. A smile tries to perk up the wet corners of his mouth. “Told you I was fine, didn’t I?”

You think back to yesterday, to Harlan standing on your doorstep. You think about the way your leg hurt, the way you tried to hide your filthy room behind you when he asked you how you were. You think about the way he looked at you when you lied to him, the pinch between his eyebrows and the frown buried in the dull slate of his beard. You think about how he must’ve known. You think about how it didn’t matter, because the lie was really for _you_ in the first place.

“Yeah,” you manage after a moment, your chest still tight with that same slow curl of anxiety. “Night, Dad.”

He mumbles a half-hearted goodnight at your back. You try to pretend that you don’t hear the slosh and chime of the bottle he pulls out of his things. It doesn’t matter. This lie isn’t for you, is it?

* * *

Some time later, the sound of infomercial music pulls you out of your dreams and back to the motel.

You pry your face out of the pillow, and the red-eye glow of the clock beside you reads 2:25. The TV noise is coming from your unit - it doesn’t have that filtered, through-the-wall dullness that you’re used to tuning out.

Everything down to your fucking bones aches when you drag yourself out of bed. There’s nothing more you’d love in the world than to just topple right back over and curl back into the starchy flannel sheets. But Billy Mays is hollering about some cleaning product you don’t use and can’t afford, and the harsh CRT light that forces your eyes shut when you open the door illuminates the fact that Dad hasn’t crawled into his own bed yet.

Because he’s still in the armchair.

You can see the top of his head and the sleepy, slouching shape of his shoulders silhouetted against the plastic blue-and-yellow gleam of the OxyClean advert blaring from the screen. The anxious sensation from earlier slides back through your muscles. You squint your eyes against the light and shuffle your way over to him, cold and vulnerable in just your boxers and a tee shirt. Your steps are burglar-careful and quiet. Dad doesn’t cope well with rude awakenings.

“Dad.” One hand creeps cautious fingers up his arm and you shake him gently. “Hey. Dad. C’mon.”

Dad shifts and snuffles, barely registering your voice. You shake him a little more and he groans, tips his head back from where his chin’s been resting on his chest. His eyes loll open, bleary and unfocused in the glow of the TV. His mouth opens too, his lips sticky and chapped, and you don’t hear what he tries to mumble at you because the reek of liquor overpowers all of your other senses for a staggering moment.

It’s then that you notice the bottle between his legs. It’s half empty, uncapped, the mouth of it still shining. There’s a dark patch on Dad’s shirt, just below his collar, and you’re not sure if it’s a spill, or saliva from where he’d been drooling just moments before.

“...time issit?” Dad manages.

“Time for bed,” you reply.

“ _Mmph_. Was sleepin’ jus’ fine.” His hands spider their way over the arms of the chair without any grace, gripping blindly like he wants to pull himself forward and up. You don’t think he actually could if he tried. Apparently, he comes to the same conclusion; his shoulders slump and his hands slip down over the sides of the chair, his feet slipping out in front of him across the carpet. He’s still got his boots on. “Go on. Go back to bed.”

“Dad, come on.” You shift uncomfortably. You feel ashamed. _Embarrassed_. You feel like you’re seeing something you’re not meant to see. “S’ bad for your back. Here.”

You lean down and try to slip an arm under Dad’s back. He grunts in protest and refuses to be moved, and he’s substantial enough that you can’t really do anything about it. You keep trying anyway, plying him with gentle requests. All the while he bitches and shoves at you - numbly, impotently - like a toddler refusing to be picked up.

“What the _fuck_ ,” you finally snap, exasperated. You give up and stand straight, shaking your head against the bewildered laugh that comes out of your throat. “The hell’s your problem?”

“Ain’t got a goddamn _problem_ ,” Dad barks, suddenly and startlingly loud. “Tryin’ to get some fuckin’ _sleep_ , s’all.”

“Ah. I see.” There’s nervous, angry sweat beading on your upper lip. You lick it away. “That’s all. That’s what you’re doin’. Tryin’ to sleep. That’s it?”

Dad’s eyes roll over your face again, glazed and unable to focus on any one feature. “Not really a fan of that tone, son,” he warns. It should make you feel small again. He wants it to make you feel small. But he just sounds so…so _pathetic_. It’s a word you never could’ve imagined applying to John Fucking Winchester, and yet—

“Just…get up, alright?” You lean down and start trying to urge him up again. “Please. You— you’ll thank me in the morning. Come _on_ , Dad,” you plead for the third time.

Dad rasps something in your ear and he stays immobile in your hold for another defiant moment. A mean little part of you begs you to leave him here, to let him stew in it. But then he’s shifting forward, his fingers digging into the meat of your shoulder, and he lets you help him up. It’s unsteady going, and you just barely manage to remember the bottle in time to grab it and save it from toppling onto the floor. You shove it onto the coffee table and you’re genuinely surprised when it doesn’t tip over then, either.

“There. There you go,” you grunt. There’s real pain it it. He’s heavy and he’s swaying and you’re having a hell of a time supporting your weight _and_ his with your bad leg, but you manage. “Great, okay, let’s—“

The two of you stumble and jostle your way over to the bedroom. Billy Mays is still shouting behind you but you’ll deal with that later. Your calf throbs and your back hurts but you make it to the other, pristinely-tucked mattress without dropping your father or busting your ass. Small miracles. Dad sits down on his bed with a huff, slumping forward into himself the minute you let him go.

It would be best, you think, to let him get to sleep, and to do the same yourself. Instead - for some reason even you can’t place - you start talking.

“You were drinking in the car,” you hear yourself saying. There’s no reason to say it, but you say it anyway.

“Drink in the car all the time,” Dad slurs dismissively.

“ _Before_ me.” It scares you, how self-righteous your voice sounds. “Before I was driving you.”

Dad shrugs, a limp roll of his shoulders. “S’fine.”

”It’s not safe.”

“It’s _fine_ —“

“No, it’s _not_ fucking fine!”

The shout bounces off the thin walls like a firecracker. Dad’s head snaps up. His eyes are wide, his lips parted in a stunned moue. Stunned. It’s as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing, what he’s _hearing_. _You_ don’t talk to him like this. You could _never_ talk to your father like this. This _can’t_ be you. 

But it _is_ you. Just this time, just this once, it’s your turn.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you snarl, hoarse and cracking. Fear continues to soar through you, but the fact is that you’ve been bottling this up for so long you were bound to pop one way or another. “You-you won’t talk to me, you won’t hardly _look_ at me sometimes, fuck. You ditch in the middle of goddamn _nowhere_ for days when I can barely get around, a-and now, what, you’re getting shitfaced behind the wheel?”

You can’t stop. It feels like vomiting, slick and vile-tasting as it bursts out of your mouth but followed by a clear, empty sort of relief. 

“Great fuckin’ idea, Dad, real smart. Go ahead - get tanked and just run yourself through the windshield and into a tree somewhere in Bumfuck, Nowhere. No more problems for you, sure, but what about me? Huh? What about _me_?” 

Dad’s mouth works uselessly, guppy-breathing non-words at you. You suck in a few deep, quaking breaths. The corners of your eyes are stinging. When you speak again it’s half-strangled and stuck in your throat. 

“You think I wanna end up _completely_ fuckin’ alone?”

All around you, the night creeps back in to fill the silence. Smooth, gentle, royalty-free music drifts through the crack in the door; 3:00 A.M., no more infomercials, just weather reports and program guides. Dad sniffs deeply, the sound wet and thick. He runs his hands over his face, shakes his head. When he pulls his palms away, his cheeks are shining in the dim bar of TV light still visible.

“...Patty asked me what happened,” he breathes. It seems like a nonsequitur; it catches you off-guard and takes some of the wind out of your sails.

“What?”

“Patty Kemper. Last job.” Dad swipes the sleeve of his shirt under his nose. “She’s the one who called me in. You don’t remember her, you were... you were both so little. She remembered you, though. Asked me where my boys were. Told her you were both back in Arkansas on another job.”

Confusion slips into the cracks left by receding adrenaline. You watch Dad sway minutely, his eyes dropping shut and fluttering open again and again, and wait for him to elaborate.

“Easier that way. That time. ‘Cause, y’know, she couldn’t see that I really only had one of you with me. Not like Harlan. Harlan asked, too, but…” He shakes his head and laughs a bitter laugh. “You were there, and your brother wasn’t, and I-I didn’t know what to say.”

 _Your brother._ Not _Sam_ , not _Sammy_. _Your_ _brother_. Not _my son_. _Your brother._ The distance in it makes your blood boil.

“What did you tell Harlan?”

“Didn’t tell him nothin’.”

“That’s bullshit. What did you tell him?”

Dad glances up at you. He looks so drawn, so completely exhausted. “Just...told him that your brother wasn’t with us anymore. Think Harlan got the wrong idea, but I didn’t—”

Dad drops off into a hiccup, and the hiccup turns into a belch. It sounds rough with potential. You’re worried for a moment, but he swallows and clears his throat.

“I, um. Well, I didn’t correct him. I don’t know why, but I didn’t…I didn’t _wanna_ correct him. Don’t know why, but…” he trails off. “I didn’t. Just let him think whatever he wanted to think. Easier that way,” he repeats, mostly to himself. “Easier. Y’know? For...for all of us.”

You grit your teeth against something rancid in your own throat. Your hands curl into fists at your sides. You get it, now. You understand why Harlan had acted the way he did.

_I’m real sorry to hear about what happened._

_Your brother._ **_Your_ ** _brother._

_Easier that way._

“You can’t talk about Sam like he’s fucking _dead_.”

It’s the first time either of you have said Sam’s name out loud since he left. Dad flinches like you cracked him across the face. He shakes his head again.

“He _left us_ , Dean—”

“Jesus,” you spit, incredulous. “That doesn’t make it right. You can’t do that. You don’t _get_ to do that.”

Dad looks like he wants to argue with you. The glassy look on his face falters, tries to sharpen into something more focused and commanding. But Dad’s cheeks are still wet, his eyes still sunken and red, his whole body swaying at the edge of the mattress like he could pitch forward into you at any second. The word _pathetic_ crawls through your mind again, sweeping along the last vestiges of your anger with it.

“You need to sleep.” You shuffle forward a step or two, raise a hand to steady his shoulder.

Dad claps a hand over yours. The calloused, clammy press of his palm against your knuckles is unsteady, desperate. It stops you in your tracks.

“Nineteen years,” Dad whispers. “Nineteen fucking years. I did my best, didn’t I? I-I tried. For nineteen years, and...and he hates me.” Another bitter, helpless laugh starts, then warps into a hiccuping sob. “He _hates_ me.”

He finally meets your eyes and your heart breaks clean down the middle, because the look on his face begs _you_ not to hate him, too.

You wrap your other hand around Dad’s forearm, free yourself from his grip. Dad lets you do it without protest, although his fingers keep finding the hem of your tee shirt, the inside of your wrist, the curve of your shoulder. Apologetic. Gentle. You guide him onto his back, onto the mattress, boots and all. When he’s finally prone, you lay down beside him. Dad’s arm worms its way under your neck, and he pulls you against his side.

“M’sorry,” Dad mumbles toward the ceiling. He hiccups again and you wonder if you ought to make him roll over. For safety’s sake. Just in case.

“I know,” you tell him, as evenly as you can. Your face feels hot; your eyes and nose and throat all ache like hell with the effort of keeping yourself together.

“For everything,” Dad sighs, already lower and quieter than before. You can see his eyes drift shut. The TV is still going on the other side of the door and the artificial light makes him look sallow, corpse-like. You don’t think about that.

“I know,” you mutter again, your nose and mouth pressed into the muscle between his chest and his shoulder. “Go to sleep.”

In another small miracle, he does. No more arguing, no more complaints. You stay still awhile, you listen to his breathing, you watch the rhythm of his chest, waiting for a cough or a heave or anything. It never comes; within ten minutes he’s snoring lightly, evenly, his belly rising and falling gently under the stained, liquor-damp flannel still buttoned around him. 

You could get up and leave. Limp back to your own bed and pretend that tonight and the last few weeks never happened. Deal with it by not dealing with it. Be a man about it.

But you don’t _feel_ like a man. Under your father’s arm, wrapped in the smell of Old Spice and whiskey and motel dust, you feel five years old again. You feel small and anxious and completely unprepared and alone, nothing to cling to but the overwhelming, ever-present shape of your father. You used to curl up against him, all balled up and kitten-warm along his ribs, with Sammy tucked up on the other side, or between you and Dad, and you’d feel safe. That feels like forever ago, now.

Your eyes are aching again before you really have time to acknowledge it. Something in your body stutters and clutches, some spot between the split in your heart and the hollow in your belly. Your hands shake, your whole body shakes, and the first sob that comes out of you threatens to shatter apart the pieces of you that aren’t already broken.

Everything crashes down around your ears, everything you’ve been ignoring and staving off for the better part of the last month. Your breath comes in hot, shallow gasps, interrupted by more body-wracking sobs. You wind your fingers tightly into the side-seam of Dad’s shirt, bury your face in his shoulder like you used to do after skinned knees and nightmares and stupid little tantrums. Sam’s amulet digs into your chest, into Dad’s side; you wrap your arm further over Dad’s stomach and dig your nails into the blanket on his far side, crush the little piece of metal between the two of you like somehow it’ll feel like there’s nothing missing for a second. The morning commercials are starting up on the TV now, drifting into the room underneath the stuttering sounds of your breath and your quaking, pain-thick voice. Dad sleeps through it all, lets you cling to him like you’re not even there, his body loose and heavy and liquor-limp. It’s better this way. It could _only_ work this way.

Gradually - after what feels like ages, after you feel like there’s nothing left in you and yet you still keep giving - the heaving in your chest does die down. The salt-damp shape of your face against Dad’s shirt dries up. The vicegrip you have on the flannel and sheets starts to make your hands hurt, and you have to let them go. This, too, feels like a purge, and you’re so empty when you’re quiet and done you wonder how you’re still alive. But you _are_ alive, and you’re more tired than you’ve ever been. Eventually you drift off to sleep, too, still tucked under your father’s arm. It doesn’t feel safe, but at least it feels like _something_.

Somewhere in the hazy hours thereafter, Sunday dawn begins to creep in through the window.


	6. Acceptance

Sunday brings a brighter morning than you’ve seen in days. You like to think it means something, even though you know it doesn’t.

Even with the sun shining, it’s colder in Oklahoma than in Arkansas. The snow hasn’t turned to slush quite yet; it still crunches pleasantly under your feet as you amble down the sidewalk. There’s a diner on the corner, a small park right before that. Pocola’s a nice town. You can think of worse places to spend a month. You have, in fact, spent months in worse places.

The diner’s a twenty-four hour place, but there’s almost no one else there when you settle into a corner booth. It’s still so early - too early. That’s alright. You’ve got time. Dad won’t wake up for another couple hours anyway, and he won’t care how cold his breakfast is when he does. You left him with his dignity, a glass of water, and half a bottle of Excedrin. You know that works better than Tylenol for him. You also know he doesn’t like waking up with his boots on. You made sure to tuck them neatly under the foot of the bed before you left.

The fat, forlorn, sweet-voiced waitress brings you the first real breakfast you’ve had in a month. Bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, sausage. Americana on a plate. You eat with all the determined satisfaction of a man who knows exactly what he’s been missing, and when your plate’s clean you order the same thing to bring home to Dad. You know he’ll like it. You know a lot of these little things, because you and Dad are very much alike.

There’s a drop of syrup on the table where your plate was sitting. You run your thumb over it, pop your thumb into your mouth. Sam always thought it was gross, that you like syrup on your sausages. That you put ketchup on your eggs. That you’ll eat your bacon cold, because it’s still bacon and that’s all that matters.

When you pull your phone out of your pocket, it doesn’t fill you with the same dread that it usually does. That’s a nice change of pace - but you don’t know what to call the feeling that slides into place where the dread used to be.

_**Sam** (650) NOV. 10 5:13AM_

_Hey._

You tap your spit-clean thumb over the keys.

_Hey._

And back again.

_Sorry I haven’t_

And back again.

_What’s up_

_How’s_

_I miss_

_Sammy, I w_

And back again, and again and again.

You hit the call button before you have time to come up with a reason not to. After all, it’s still so early - even earlier in California than here. You figure Sam’s probably still dead asleep, figure there’s a good chance you can just leave a message or something. Then the line stutters and clicks on the third ring and wouldn’t you know it, you figured wrong.

“Dean?”

If you had anything prepared, it’s gone from your head the second you hear that voice. You open your mouth and you try to manage something respectable but all that makes it out of your throat is:

“Sammy.” And, because you’re a poet at heart, “Hey.”

“Hey. Wow. Hey. Oh, man. You— Uh. Hey. Hi.”

He sounds groggy - croaking and scratching over his words. There’s some shuffling, tumbling, a quick curse (“god _dammit_ , piece of—“); you get the mental image of Sam dropping the phone as he scrambles to sit up in bed. You can’t help but chuckle, even though the sound feels like it’s clawing its way up and out over broken glass.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you up.” And you didn’t _mean_ to - but you’re glad you _did_.

“No, no, no,” Sam replies quickly, almost before you finish. “It’s okay. Seriously, it’s fine. I just…I didn’t think you’d call, but I’m - it’s totally okay.”

“Alright. Well, how you doin’, kid?” It’s a weak start, but it’s all you can muster for the time being. You’re still trying to overcome the birdwing-beat of your heart, the tightness in your throat.

Across the restaurant, the waitress and the cook are talking - loud enough that you could probably hear them, based on the way they’re gesturing and how empty the place is - but you’re too busy listening to Sam clear his throat, listening to the click of him swallowing, all of it in high-definition. You feel it in your belly, every tiny sound, feel the familiarity of it all pour warmly into that hollow place in your stomach like a fresh cup of coffee. There’s nothing else in the world except the other end of this phone call.

“I’m…I’m good, Dean, I-I’m real good,” Sam manages lightly, shakily. If you think too hard about the quiver in his voice it’ll be all over for you. So you don’t.

“Good.”

“Dean, you…” Sam swallows again and you think about the way he licks his lips when he gets nervous like this. “Is everything okay? You didn’t…I tried to, um, you know, I-I texted you. I thought maybe - I was, I was worried.”

He’s trying too hard to keep his voice even, and the way he strains and falters makes him sound so fucking young. He _is_ still so fucking young. You feel like there’s a knife in your ribs.

“...I know. I, uh.” You falter, too, because an excuse would be easy. _I was busy, we got caught up in a job, I lost track of time._ But: “I’m sorry, Sammy.”

“It’s okay,” Sam breathes again, so sweet. “You’re alright? You and-and Dad, you’re alright?”

“We’re alright.”

“I’m glad.” Sam’s voice threatens to break again. For both your sakes, you don’t give him the chance.

“Never guess who I got to see the other day.”

There’s a long pause, more shuffling, the sound of the phone sliding against Sam’s jaw, and he exhales. “Um, who?”

“Harlan. You remember him?”

“Oh—“ Another breath, and Sam stops to think. “Yeah, yeah. I remember Harlan. The dude with the, uh—“

“The missing arm, yeah. And the three-pack-a-day habit. Same old, same old.”

“Wow. He’s gotta be, what, in his seventies? And still goin’?”

“Yeah, man. Like a chimney. End of the world, it’s just gonna be Harlan and a buncha cockroaches, watching the whole thing burn and splitting the last good pack of Marlboro Reds.”

Sam chuckles and you revel in the little victory. “Were you on a job?”

“Yeah. Missing persons thing over in Arkansas.”

”What was it? Vamps?”

”Nah - kelpie. You should’ve seen it. Gnarliest motherfucker I’ve seen in awhile.”

Sam asks you about the case and you tell him as much as you can. You give him the cleaner, sanitized version. The PG-13 version: no gore, no sex, no week-long dead-brained fugue. Sam, for his part, lets you spin your yarn like it’s the most interesting thing in the world, even though you’re certain he’d have figured Chelsea out from the get-go instead of waiting until he smelled the wilds on her. Sam lets you ramble on with little interjection, and you’ve been talking for fifteen minutes before you realize it.

“You know there’s a town in Arkansas called Toad Suck?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Sam scoffs. His voice sounds a little brighter, a little clearer. “You’re so full of it.”

“Hand to God. I took a picture of the sign. I’ll send it to you.”

There’s a lull in the conversation, and you’re content just to listen to Sam breathe for a few moments.

“I didn’t think you’d call,” he repeats at length. You don’t ask him why; he explains anyway. “I didn’t think you’d wanna talk to me at all. After - after that. You know? I thought…I don’t know. I don’t know, Dean. Figured...” He trails off, back to that too-small, too-young voice, and tries to laugh. Fails. “Figured you must fuckin’ _hate_ me.”

The knife in your ribs twists harder, higher, right into your hummingbird heart. For a second you’re worried it might actually kill you. There’s a hundred million things you could say, that you want to say, and that some day you might have the balls to say. Things you might never know how to say, and things that you probably shouldn’t say - especially to Sam. For now, though, you’re just a big brother on the phone with a scared, lonely kid, and everything in you just wants him to feel alright again.

“Look, Sammy,” you begin - and stumble, and cough, and try again. “I get it. I do. I didn’t at first, but - you gotta do your own thing. You’re _gonna_ do your own thing, no matter what. That’s who you are. But - _no matter what_ \- I’m gonna be there. Okay? Maybe not, like, _there_ -there, but…you get the gist. Right?”

Another wet click in Sam’s throat. You’ve never wanted to hold the kid more in your fucking life, and he’s six-hundred miles away. And that’s for the best. You get it. You really do.

“Okay,” Sam sniffles. ”Thanks, De.”

“Yeah, well. No waterworks, okay? Jeez. Don’t you have to go get paddled or something? Or whatever gay shit they do to pledges nowadays.”

“God, you’re an asshole,” Sam bitches, but he does actually laugh in spite of himself. “I’m not pledging a frat.”

“What, not all that into streaking and beer pong?”

“Not yet,” Sam says. “But, hey, I haven’t been here that long. Give it time.”

“So no paddling, no streaking, and no beer pong,” you hum thoughtfully. “What the hell _have_ you been doin’ up at college, then?”

Sam laughs again and starts to tell you about Stanford, and about the trip there. It might be a sanitized version, and it might not. You don’t care. You listen to every word like it’s gospel. If you close your eyes and tune out everything else, you can imagine that you’re not that far apart. You can almost imagine that Sam’s right there with you, right across from you in the booth having breakfast just like always. You can picture his hair still curling over his brow in that way it does right after he gets up. He usually can’t be bothered to groom himself without at least one cup of coffee under his belt. You wonder how long it’ll take ‘til someone in California gets to know how Sam takes his coffee, or that he eats his eggs over-medium and never over-easy and that there _is_ a difference, or that sometimes if he’s having a bad day all it takes to cheer him up is to find the nearest body of water and drive around it for a little while.

You wonder if there’s a word for the way you love Sam. There must be - it’s too big to not have a name. Too powerful. It swells and boils in that previously-empty, previously-frozen spot in your belly, so massive and bright that it hurts. You know it’ll hurt worse when the call’s over and you’re left without so much as the sound of your baby brother stumbling over the pronunciations of California streets.

But for now, you have Sam’s voice, and that’s enough. You feel full, you feel warm, and you’re happier than you have been in ( _almost_ ) three weeks.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and so forth are, as always, so deeply appreciated. I love feedback! I'm also on Twitter if you wanna reach out to me there, @meltinskelton
> 
> Later!


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